Odes and Elegies 

Clinton Scollard 




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Book 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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Of this Edition of Odes and Elegies 
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BOOKS BY MR. SCOLLARD 

IN VERSE 

Pictures in Song 
With Reed and Lyre 
Old and New World Lyrics 
Giovio and Giulia 
Songs of Sunrise Lands 
The Hills of Song 
A Boy's Book of Rhyme 
Skenandoa 
The Lutes of Morn 
Lyrics of the Dawn 
Ballads of Valor and Victory 
njuith Wallace Rice 
The Lyric Bough 
Lyrics and Legends of Christmas-Tide 

IN PROSE 

Under Summer Skies 

On Sunny Shores 

A Man-at-Arms 

The Son of a Tory 

A Knight of the Highway 

The Cloistering of Ursula 

Count Falcon of the Eyrie 

Footfarings 



Odes and Elegies 



CLINTON SCOLLARD 




The Dreamers 

Uawton 

On a. Copy of Keats' Enoymion 

EuEGY IN Autumn 

The March of The Ioeau 

The Stars of Mornins 

The Oriskany 




George William Browning 



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Contents 

The Dreamers .... 9 

Lawton 19 

On a Copy of Keats' Endymion 33 

Elegy in Autumn ... 39 

The March of the Ideal . 45 

The Stars of Morning . . 55 

The Oriskany ... 61 



The Dreamers 



THE DREAMERS 

WHO does not love, at the clear stroke of night, 
When winter clamors shrilly at the door, 
To brood upon the manifold delight, 

The incomparable charm that June-time brings,— 
The gradual hill, full-verdured to the height, 
The sky apulse with mellow rapturings, 
The garden's Indies, a most precious store ! 
Who is not fain to build 'mid cold and rime 

Some blissful little bower of warmth and ease, 
Poised in the rose-hours of the summer-time, 
And hummed about by bees. 
And washed by the low swell of halcyon seas ! 

Herein are all men dreamers. Out of dreams 

Do they mould sunshine if grows dark the day ; 
Then let lean cynics pen their scornful reams, 
Fleering at that^which fastens not on fact, 
Decrying the imagination's gleams. 

And making with the real their boastful pact, 

Yet are they as the others, — even they ! 
With what dire crash their prided fabrics fall. 

Based, as they deemed, upon the rock of truth ! 
A meek-eyed violet flowering by a wall 

Can topple all, forsooth. 

With one swift glimpse of the lost dream of Youth 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



The loftiest souls the truest dreamers are ; 

Witness the sages of the antique days ! 
What burning visions caught they from afar, 

As by the tortuous ways of life they trod, 
Seeking beyond this dull terrestrial star 

The paths that reach unto the throne of God ! - 

Moses, who saw within the bush ablaze 
The Deity ; and he who worshiped fire ; 

Brahma and Buddh ; the first Mohammedan ; 
And witness, too, that One whose rapt desire 

Here upon earth was man, — 

That he should rise to meet the Master's plan ! 

Are they not dreamers likewise, they who probe 

Into the secrets of the earth and air. 
Snatch from the hidden force the hindering robe, 

And for the use of mankind set it free 
Till speech engirdles on a wire the globe. 

Or leaps through ether over land and sea, 

Well-nigh as quick as bodiless thought may fare 
Since Franklin drew the lightning from the skies 

What goals of miracle have these dreamers won, 
Until our minds have quite outworn surprise, 

Viewing the wonders spun 

By necromancers such as Edison ! 



10 



THE DREAMERS 



And they, those earliest adventurers 

hito what was the dread and vast unknown, 
What luring dreams were theirs ! what goading spurs 

To pierce the core of mystery, and unfold, — 
Daring the ocean's fathomless sepulchres,— 
Wide continents of undiscovered gold ! 

Columbus peering from the prow alone, 
Magellan plunging on the straits of death. 

The Elizabethans, valorous as proud, — 
Such men as these were, prodigal of breath, 

Will still seek to unshroud 

The world's last bourn, though veiled by polar cloud 

The soldier, is he not a dreamer, too, 

In vivid panorama picturing 
Conquest, with all its sanguine retinue, 

Ere yet one swooping squadron strikes a blow, — 
In fancy imaging how he will subdue 

The massing legions of the embattled foe ! 

Mark the impetuous Alexander fling 
His serried phalanx, and watch Hannibal 

Spring, as he planned, the springes of his snare ! 
Behold the Corsican's matchless measure fall, 

And Grant, the unyielding, dare 

In the grim Wilderness out-face despair ! 



II 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



And what are they who shape and guide the state 

If not the veriest dreamers every one. 
Thinking to lift, through tactful effort great, 

To envied heights of perfectness and power 
The land whereto their love is consecrate ! 

Treading the night e'en to the dawn's red hour, 

How oft did our unselfish Washington 
Let the dream lead him ! for what visionings 

Did martyred Lincoln put aside his rest, 
Seeing beyond strife's transitory stings, 

And furious factional zest, 

A renewed nation with no man oppressed ! 

And ah, the worshipers at the shrine of sound, 
What dreams of magic multiform have they ! 

Linking within one fixed harmonious bound 

All wandering raptures both of time and tone, 

From the high treble to the bass profound, 

Swaying the captive sense through every zone 
Of feeling, as the storm-wind swirls the spray ! 

Hark Handel, with his mighty anthem sweep ; 
Beethoven, who drew symphonies from the breeze ; 

Chopin, whose melodies are like chords of sleep ; 
Wagner, whose thunderous keys 
Are like the infuriate roar of reef-foiled seas ! 



12 



THE DREAMERS 



And those who from the rainbow's airy arc 

The radiant range of colors filch and fuse, — 
Out of the void and the insensate dark 

What semblances of life take shape and glow 
At their impulsion ! Marvel-mute we mark 
The illuminating scope of Angelo, 

Titian's rich dyes, Murillo's heavenly hues, 
The glamour and the grace of Raphael, 

Lavish Reubens, with his ornate array, 
Rembrandt's clear limning, Turner's sunset spell, 

And the weird glooms that play 

On the Dantean canvas of Dore. 

The finished craftsmen who from marble cold 

Fashion such snowy symmetries of form, — 
Moved by ethereal dreams do they not mould 

Their glorious figures, instinct with all grace, 
Until from soulless stone our eyes behold. 

As though through wizardry, out-flower the face. 

The sinews seem to swell, the veins grow warm ! 
The peerless splendor of the Parthenon, 

What darkness does this Phidian dream illume ! 
What a rare gleam through Donatello shone ! 

And how doth beauty bloom 

In the pure art above Canova's tomb ! 



i3 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



The poets who, 'tis sagely said, abide 

In confines girt by arrased fantasy, 
Beyond the visual flow of time and tide, 

Albeit they walk on earth, how well we know 
Their varied visions ! Homer's heroes stride 
Grandly before us in a cuirassed row ; 

Pass Chaucer's pilgrims on their errantry ; 
Shakespere's innumerous pageant pomps it by ; 

Endymion wooes the night's enamored queen ; 
King Arthur waves Excalibur on high ; 

And mournful yet serene 

Shine the sweet features of Evangeline. 

The dreamers of high dreams these, one and all, 

Hearing an infinite whisper from some star 
Poised in celestial ether ; letting fall. 

To follow the bright bidding, whatsoe'er 
Engages them, though the imperious call 
To the unkenning seem like witless air. 

Or vacant vaporings. if the goal be far, 
And if thereto the arduous path be long, 

Yet are they steadfast, undismayed of will ; 
Theirs are the morning faces ; theirs the song, 

Though skies be gloomed with ill ; 

And theirs the deeds that set the world athrill ! 



14 



THE DREAMERS 



Shall we not, then, cry to the dreamers — ''Hail 

Who should compel our worship if not they ? 
Nay, more ! ere yet our vital forces fail, 

Wherein we may, whatever be our power, 
Let us aspire to make the dream avail ! 

Not on the earth, but on the soaring tower, 

Not on the night, but on the luminous day. 
Not on the real be fixed our strenuous gaze, 

But on the ideal with its radiant gleam ! 
Yea, let us, till the severing of the ways,— 

Life's ultimate hour supreme,— 

Onward and upward follow still the dream ! 



1900 



15 



Lawton 



'l{ead before the Thi 'Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College 
June 38th, i^oo 



LAWTON 

WHEN the dead hero goes 
To his last, long repose, 
The solemn drum 
Sounds an eulogium ; 
Bowed is the head 

Above the gathered glory of his years ; 
And there are tears. 
In tender tribute shed, 

From comrade eyes that never flinched at fears. 
The final word is said, 
And then his dust, of all assoilment shriven, 
Wherefrom one day the violet may have birth, 
By reverent hands is given 
Unto the soft, warm mothering of earth. 
And it was thus, 
A February day not long agone, 
The mourning naticm laid 
In Arlington's most hallowed shade 
( O sacred spot, O haven beauteous, 
By sacrifice deep-sanctified to us I) 
One whose clear gaze turned ever toward the dawn 



19 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



Republics, 'twas aforetime written large, 

Are wonted to forget 

The due and debt 

To them that bore unfalteringly their targe ; 

To them that led when hope 

Was like a dim, small star ; 

To them that urged along the arduous slope 

And gained the beckoning bourn, however far. 

Have we abased our mood 

To such ingratitude ? 

Answer, O figure foremost evermore 

From the Atlantic to the Pacific shore ! 

Thou, whose unsullied fame 

Above us towers in peerless majesty, 

As lifts the massive shaft that bears thy name 

In the proud city dedicate to thee. 

Where the serene Potomac seeks the sea ! 

Answer thou, too, O intimate of Pain, 

Beloved martyr by blind frenzy slain. 

Through whom the Mother-land is truly free ! 

And thou, O latest flower 

Of our white knightlihood. 

Although the land gave not to thee for dower 

A place exalted in its high estate. 



20 



LAWTON 



Naming thee not until too late 

Among its great, 

Hailing thee not as of its eagle brood, 

Lawton, we bid thee say, 

Albeit the reluctant tongue of praise delay, 

If ours is as the mood of far-lapsed yesterday ; 

If thought or open deed 

Scant thy deserving meed, 

Thou, whose brave life to us was consecrate ! 

What happier time 

To lay above his bier our immortelles ! 

The hilltops have forgot the chilling rime, 

And once again articulate nature swells 

A jubilate from her deepest dells. 

What fitlier place 

His virile powers t© grace 

Than this memorial spot ! for it was here 

From Harvard's generous breast he came to draw 

The wisdom and the spirit of the law ; 

And, like her loyal and intrepid Shaw, 

His heart was simple, steadfast, and sincere. 



21 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



He had his indefatigable zest 

From the broad loins of the untrammelled West ; 

Ohio cradled him, and nursed, and taught ; 

From the Iowa prairie-lands he caught 

A sense of largeness, — an uplifting share 

Of wide horizons and resplendent air. 

So when the sulphurous smoke from Moultrie's mouth 

Drifted above the proud, impassioned South, 

And the roused nation uttered her alarms 

In shrill reveille-call — '' To arms ! to arms 1 " 

In the lithe stature of his youth he rose. 

Eager to offer life, which was his all^ 

And to that awful conflict's sanguine close 

Dared mightily as alone the dauntless dare ; 

For not the darkest terror can appall 

The soul that looks on death and fmds it fair 

If on his country he a boon bestows. 

Instead of peaceful toil afield, at school. 

The bustle of great camps ! the rigorous rule 

And savagery of war ! 

Nathless the noble cause he struggled for 

Withheld his strenuous nature from complaint ; 

Twin to his valor was a fine restraint 

That lifted him above the touch of taint. 



22 



LAWTON 



Fate marshalled him with those 

Who felt the desperate throes 

Of battle's lurid hell-fires round them drawn 

When Johnston swept, with clash of whelming blows, 

Through Shiloh's woods that dewy spring-time dawn ; 

And he was one who breasted the fierce shock 

When Thomas stood, the army's living rock, 

Till Chickamauga saw its bloody close. 

Of many a cruel field he knew the scars, 

Till where the cordon lay 

About the foe at bay, 

Caged in Atlanta, one red August day, 

He led the foremost onset of the fray. 

And won a colonel's eagled shoulder-bars. 

Through what a white-hot crucible of flame 

This youthful Bay-ard came 

To manhood ! yet it was not love of strife 

That made him choose, in peace, a soldier's life, 

But that high ardor christened chivalry. 

And Duty's silent whisper to the soul. 

He set his swerveless vision on the goal 

Of service to his country. Such as he 

Are not enamored of war's panoply. 

Knowing too well its dark reverse and dole. 



2? 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



Once more were books put by, 

And the brief scholar's ease 

Beneath the shadow of the Cambridge trees ; 

Again for him the illimitable sky 

Above the billows of the prairie-seas ! 

The rigid years inured, 

And welded to his stature sterner strength, — 

An iron that endured ; 

And now there came an hour, 

( Writ in our annals at too meagre length ! ) 

When this potential and perfected power. 

Tested by sudden stress, 

Expanded, like the slowly opening flower, 

Into full fruitfulness. 

Who that hath never gazed with wildered brain 

On the stark stretch of Arizonian plain. 

Shrivelled beneath the heat, breathed the gray grime 

Of that parched clime, 

Can with clear limning tell 

How like it seems to those drear depths of hell 

That fancy pictured to the Florentine ! 

In all the amplitude of its demesne 



24 



LAWTON 



The earth reveals no ghastlier, grimmer scene ! 

Wastes where the death's-head grins by every path ; 

Mountains the Deity upheaved in wrath, 

And then with his hot lightnings smote apart ; 

The maddening mirage that lures the heart 

Into the fatal canyon of despair ; 

Lo, it was there 

This hero tracked, through leagues of burning air, 

The last great savage to his last blind lair ! — 

King Philip's heritor in his work of woe, 

The Apache scourge, the fierce Geronimo. 

Enleashed by the dull quietude of peace, 

Some natures, bred to action, gather rust. 

As doth the sword within the scabbard thrust, 

And in the shadowy, cobwebbed corner laid ; 

Not thus a blade - 

Tempered as was the brand Excalibar ! 

So when the rent flag of the single star 

Called to our banner, constellated bright. 

Beseeching that long tyrannies should cease, 

Once more this paladin girt him for the fight, 

And at the hoary wrong smote with a righteous might. 



25 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



The encrimsoned splendor of the Cuban morn 

Flushed the tall palm-frond and the cactus-thorn ; 

A wakening bugle, like some magic horn. 

Shrilled and was answered. As when jason saw, 

With a hushed wonder that was kin to awe, 

Mars' newly-furrowed field 

Its deadly harvest yield 

Of earth-born warriors armed with mace and shield. 

So swarmed those island slopes with serried lines. 

Through jungle-grass and bloom of matted vines 

Forward they surged and pressed, 

Until the gory struggle of that day 

At Lawton's word burst from a long, low crest 

With boom of Capron's guns on El Caney. 

Closing with eager squadrons left and right, 

He watched the furious battle wax and wane. 

While floated still, defiant on the sight, 

The ancient flag of red and yellow stain. 

Then with the calm of self-forgetful power 

That marks men great in the decisive hour, 

His human sacrifice upon the height 

He flung, and crushed the dying hope of Spain. 



26 



LAWTON 



Many there be that watch with grieved eyes, 
And brows aflush with shame, 
What they deem sacrilege in freedom's name, 
And the mad warping of our destinies ; 
Feeling no thrill exultant in them rise 
Howe'er beneath the sultry Luzon skies 
Our armies triumph, but a sense of blame. 
If ours the trespass, even as we sowed. 
And still are sowing, shall the reaping be ! 
But who can follow this swift warrior's road, 
Resistless as the surge of the gray sea. 
And not be moved that we can claim the man 
As type of what we name — American ! 
And ah, the blinding pity of it all. 
If we be smirching with a guilty red 
The purity of Liberty's fountain-head, 
That through our efror such an one should fall 

Duty not glory was his beacon-star ; 

And never underneath God's searching sun 

Was duty more indomitably done ! 

His the stout shield with no dark flaw to mar ! 

The buckler without scar ! 

Droit et rqyale — thus was enscrolled his crest ; 

Droit et rqyale— what fairer could attest 



27 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



The fire that burned unquenched within his breast 

From Laurel Hill, when, in his youth's first flower, 

He faced unfalteringly death's leaden shower, 

Till San Mateo's last and fatal hour ! 

His was the temperate poise, the rare reserve, 

The careful husbanding of high resource, 

That gives the vital impetus to force ; 

But when the call came, straight and fleet his course 

As is the bullet's flight that does not swerve. 

A viking strain sang sagas in his blood, 

Yet mercy linked with tenderness was there ; 

An examplar ever (like the bold trouvere 

Who on the Saxons led the Norman flood, 

Flashing about his head a falchion bare). 

He deemed his place to be with those that dare. 

Lest any, doubting, shirk their rightful share. 

Above his brow the worn white helmet set, 

His the crusader's spirit as it shone 

From out the eyes of that Plantagenet 

Who stormed round Acre and round Ascalon ; 

In him was Sidney's valor born anew ; 

Ney's pennons ne'er with fiercer ardor flew ; 

Wayne's verve was his, the dash of Marion. 



28 



LAWTON 

''Only a soldier! '' thus the land once heard 
From his own lips the plain and modest word. 
Albeit broader energies in him lay 
Had fate but given freer scope and play, 
Be this his epitaph ! But in pure gold 
On Honor's roster be it brightly scrolled ! 
God send us others, at the peal of need, 
Who shall be emulous in thought and deed 
Of his example. Aye, if fight we must. 
May there be leaders worthy of our trust ! 
God send us others ! — men who, Lawton like, 
In Duty's vanguard do not fear to strike ! 
Who walk unswerving down life's firing line, 
Facing the foe, howe'er the missiles whine ! 
Who hold no stain our peerless flag should mar,- 
No blemish dim the glory of one star ! 
Who scorn ignoble ends and methods base, — 
The demagogue's mouthing in the market-place, 
The boss's trickery and debasing rule 
That mocks the citizen, be he not a tool ! 
God send us others, as the years increase, 
Until, when dreams come true, and battles cease. 
Our Lawtons tread the lilied paths of peace ! 



29 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



In that exalted time 

When Greece was as a flower in radiant prime, 

From the Promethean altar, builded white 

Within the rustling groves of Academe, 

By clear Cephissus' stream, 

Runners, fast-gripping torches, held alight, 

Fresh from the votive heat. 

Toward an appointed goal took strenuous flight 

As upon winged feet. 

Each passed his torch, the bright flame still aburn, 

Unto another, passing it in turn, 

Until the chain of runners was complete. 

Thus down the decades, on from age to age. 

Have hero, prophet, sage. 

The undying torches borne 

Of valor, wisdom, and of high desire ; 

And shall it not be said of him we mourn — 

He was of those who bore Promethean fire ! 



30 



On a Copy of Keats' Endymion 

" The stretched meter of an antique song" 



ON A COPY OF ENDYMION 

HAS not the glamoured season come once more, 
When earth puts on her arras of soft green ? 
See where along the meadow rillet's shore 
The wild-rose buds unfold ! 
Eastward the boughs with murmurous laughter lean 
To warm themselves in morning's generous gold. 
The foxgloves nod along the English lanes 

That saw erewhile the dancing sprites of snow ; 
Night long the leaf-hid nightingale complains 

With such melodious woe 
That Sleep, enamored of her soaring strains, 
Is widely wakeful as the dim hours go. 

Ope but the page — and hark, the impassioned bird 

That through the hush of the be-shadowed hours 
Pours in the ear of dark its melting word ! 
Here is as mellow song 

As ever welled from pleached laurel bowers, 
Or e'er was borne soft orient winds along. 
Here one may list all ecstasies they sung. 

The shepherds and the maids of Arcady, 
Flower-garlanded what time the world was young ; — 

Pandean minstrelsy. 
Low flutings from slim pipes of silver tongue 

Played by the dryads on some upland lea. 



33 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



And blent with these are heavenly whisperings 

As faint as whitening poplars make at dawn. 
Sublime suggestions of fine-fingered strings 
Touched in celestial air, 

And earthward through the dulling ether drawn, 
Yet falling on us more than earthly fair ; 
The voice divine that young Endymion knew 

In the cool woodland's darkmost depths by night, 
When godlike ardors thrilled him through and through ; 

And his voice from the height 
Whither, on wakening, drenched with chilly dew, 

He sought the goddess in the gathering light. 

But ah, what mournful memories are mine, 

Song-wakened at this lavish summer-tide ! 
Can I forget that sombre cypress line 
By old Rome's ruined wall, 

The lonely grave that alien grasses hide, 
The deep, pathetic silence shrouding all ? 
Who would forget ? Blest be the song that bears 

My soul across aerial seas of space 
As wingedly as airy fancy fares ! 

For now that earth's worn face 
The radiant glow of life's renewal wears. 

Would I in reverence seek that sacred place. 



34 



ON A COPY OF KEATS' ENDYMION 



There would I lay these woven shreds of rhyme 

In lieu of scattered heart's-ease and the rose. 
Behold how Song has triumphed over Time, 
For still his song rings clear, 

Though now the century falters to its close, 
And he has slumbered many a fateful year ! 
If to the poet's rapt imaginings 

Beauty be wed, with love of purpose high, 
Despite the cynic and his scornful flings 

Song shall not fail and die, 
But like the bird that up the azure springs 

Still thrill the heart, still fill the listening sky ! 

1899 



35 



Elegy in Autumn 

September, ipo/ 



ELEGY IN AUTUMN 

ONCE more, Beloved Land, once more, once more, 
How art thou stricken sore 
When Peace, with her white lilies intertwined, 
From shore to opulent shore, 
Abides with thee ! — and not an eye divined 
The shadow brooding o'er ! 
Again our anguished sight is dimmed with tears, 
As in those other unforgotten years 
When evil rumor leaped along the street. 
And dinned the news abhorred into our ears, 
Making joy seem a byword and a cheat. 
Fleet, ah, how over fleet. 
Fate's unrelenting feet ! 

The vernal face of Mirth 

Is, of a sudden, vanished from the earth. 

What now the autjumnal pomp ? the radiant show 

And shine of nature ? Can it ease our woe ? 

What mortal might. 

Scaling the empyrean, height on height. 

Can backward turn the austere hands of Time ? 

Can sweep from off the page, erewhile so white, 

The intolerable crime ? 



39 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



O bells, O bells, 

Albeit dumb with grief, 

We cannot win relief 

From the reiterant dolor of your knells ! 

Ring, then ; ring on ! 

But howsoever deep the vibrant notes 

From your innumerous throats. 

You cannot voice our sorrows, though the wan 

Watches of midnight, or the dawning chill, 

Find you elegiac still ! 

And, with the sad intoning of the bells, 

Bring immortelles ! 

Bring them, O welded Sisterhood of States, 

From the remotest gates. 

From your extremest capes, — 

Those promontories where the eternal sea 

Its melancholy diapason shapes. 

Bemoaning our too bitter agony ! 

You, weeping North, you, smitten South, are one ; 

You, East and West, are knit in unison ! 



40 



ELEGY IN AUTUMN 



Greatly he lived, our martyr, greatlier died ; 

Magnanimous amid the stress and noise 

Of party rancor, equable of poise, 

Of large conviction, and of foresight wide. 

Tender as spring-time in his fireside ties ; 

Unworldly, and yet wise : 

Stranger to haste, yet with the vital force 

That moves unswerving on a shapen course ; 

Leal to his friends, fair to his enemies ! 

But Sorrow seals the fount of eulogies ! 

Another day the stream of praise shall rise. 

And fitlier sound the p^^an of his worth 

To the broad girth 

Of the depressed earth. 

And we shall see 

How ripe, how rare, how high a type was he 

Of true Democracy ! 

And this red plague-spot on the Commonwealth, 
This mid-day Menace, this despised Stealth, 
This subtle, writhing, loathesome, sanguine thing,- 
Abominable, devoid of heart or soul, 
Gloating, if it but gain its ghoulish goal,— 



41 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



Shall we not sear it with a righteous fire ? 

Of its mad poison purge us ? pluck its sting ? 

Not with intemperate ire, 

(Though where were anger rightlier white of heat?) 

But with the iron rigors and the awe 

Of the enthroned Law,— 

Justice, exalted on her judgment-seat ! 

Stricken, downcast, benumbed, shall any wraith, 
Howe'er so ominous, o'erthrow our faith ? 
Failure ! — what patriot is there dares aver 
(Holding himself ftiir Freedom's worshiper) 
On History's hourly-growing page our name — 
The Great Republic's — shall be writ in shame ! 
Though anarch threats as black as midnight loom, 
Though Murder's tocsin seems to presage doom, 
The land that our immortal Washington 
Moulded, and wrought for till his years were done, 
The land that Lincoln travailed for to death, 
The land for which he yielded up his breath 
Who stood among us hale but yesterday. 
Shall not go darkling on the downward way, 
But climb the upward path untried and far, 
And light the future like a glorious star ! 



42 



The March of the Ideal 



THE MARCH OF THE IDEAL 

NO hoary sage, enamored of gray eld, 
Howe'er so keen his eye. 
Has ever pierced the Past's obscuring veil, 
And, in the mythic morning-time, beheld 
Where the primeval founts of Know^ledge lie. 
In vain does man assail 
The starry bastions of the midnight sky. 
Seeking the source of light, 
The awful Infinite ; 
And so in vain 

Man's rapt desire to read the riddle plain, — 
The source of that incalculable store 
That in the brain foregathers more and more. 

Have we not known, 
In the lush upland regions, overgrown 
With beech and bracken, in a quiet dell. 
Mossed at the edge, 
And overhung with sedge, 
A tiny pool, a crystal woodland well, — 
A little thing half hidden from the day ? 
*' A little thing," we say ; 
Yet from so small a source 



45 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



May sweep a Hudson in majestic course, 
A Mississippi take its seaward way ! 
So is it with that immemorial spring 
Hid in the illimitable uplands of the Past,— 
The well of Knowledge. Variant and vast. 
Through the successive ages widening, 
The flood-tide from it cast ! 

Ere Susa was, or gardened Babylon 

Lifted its pillared porches to the sun, 

Amid the cumbrous coil of human life, 

The interblended calm and strife. 

Were men who stood above, apart, 

Mighty of brain and militant of heart. 

The freshening founts to swell 

The onward sweep from the sequestered well. 

There was a time 

When pulsed the current like a choral chime 

Celestially sublime ; 

When ran the tide as clear 

As is the hyalescent atmosphere 

Round Saint Elias in Alaskan snows, — 

The Periclean age of high repose. 



46 



THE MARCH OF THE IDEAL 

Again the flood grew broad 
What time the imperial Augustus awed 
The outland peoples with his mighty sway, 
And, on Judean hills, the ''Lamb of God," 
A little child, within the manger lay. 

Who giveth to this tide ? 

Prophet and poet and the argus-eyed 

Searcher into all problems intricate, 

Whether they be of Science, or the fate 

That on the soul doth wait. 

Happy the age wherein 

These high-inspired and lofty figures dwell 1 

Their truth triumphantly assoils the sin ; 

The stream flows broader from the living well. 

One haunted by the old Greek loveliness, 

Who has his final home 

In alien loam 

Beneath the many-battled walls of Rome, 

Sang sweet of Beauty's purifying power ; 

Another voice, of rapture none the less, 

Long stilled for aye 

By the chill billows of blue Spezia bay. 



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ODES AND ELEGIES 



Loud chanted Justice and man's equal dower. 

With cup at lip, heroic Socrates, 

Shakespere, the myriad-minded one, 

Grave-thoughted Emerson, — 

Such souls as these 

Leave to all time the richest legacies. 

Whichever be the plan, 

Nature through mankind, or through Nature man, 

Tis Nature is the great idealist, 

Fashioning from out the somber morning mist 

Mountains of rose and hills of amethyst ; 

Moulding with incomparable toil 

From out the base essentials of the soil 

The immaculate lily-tower, 

All grace and sweetness centered in a flower ; 

Prisoning within one small wood-warbler's throat 

Ecstatic note upon ecstatic note. 

Tis those close cleaving unto Nature, then, 

Who are the master spirits among men. 

Idealists, 

Holding their noon-tide and nocturnal trysts 

With what is lofty, elemental, pure,— 

The essences divine that shall endure. 



48 



THE MARCH OF THE IDEAL 

Upon them let us keep 

Our vision fixed while flee the fateful years, 

As doth the mariner on the storm-vexed deep 

Upon the beacon-star by which he steers ! 

Their shining names 

Are ours as well as Fame's, 

Whate'erthe beauteous mould in which they wrought 

Their mind-ennobling thought ; — 

Whether with Phidian skill 

In marble reproducing mortal will, 

Or limning, Raphael like, the human form 

Till on the canvas it seems live and warm, 

Or welding states fragmental into one 

As did our hero-hearted Washington. 

Alas, for obdurate souls that will not heed 
The seer's exalted voice of prophecy, 
That will not follow where the climbers lead 
Along life's radiant hilltops, glad and free ! 
But plait a crown of cruel thorns for those, 
The men of mastery and of rapt insight, 
Who, fearless, face the blinded bigot's blows. 
And stand, unswerving, for the truth and right ; 



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ODES AND ELEGIES 



Who place the good of all o'er that of self, 
And honest penury o'er dishonest pelf ; 
Who keep alive the patriot's holy ire 
Against the truckler and his low desire, 
And hold the honor of a nation's shield 
Should bear no stain upon its fair white field ! 

Have we not read how great Canute of old, 

Sitting within his chair of beaten gold 

Beside the shore where dashed the thunderous sea. 

To show how small is earthly sovereignty 

'Gainst Nature's laws and their imperious sway, 

Bade the upheaving waves their course to stay ? 

Thus far," he cried, ''no further shalt thou go 1 " 

But lo. 

The impetuous forward flow. 

With unabated bound, 

And deep, triumphal sound. 

Swept on, and broke the royal seat around I 

As impotent, and no whit wiser, they 

Who deem that puny human power can stay 

The spirit's course on its celestial way ! 



ti 



50 



THE MARCH OF THE IDEAL 

Life's real 

Outreaches longing hands for the Ideal ; 

Never was nurtured an aspiring soul 

That did not dream of a more lofty goal, 

With recompense more glorious set therein, 

Than the clay-cumbered feet of man may win. 

Within the artist's mind the imaged saint 

Is fairer than his finest brush can paint ; 

The poet's fancy far outwings his word, 

And the musician's music, what is heard ; 

And never lover lived who did not grace 

With ideal beauty the beloved face I 

It is this touch of heaven that bids us hope 

By sure degrees we may ascend the slope 

That leads to those aerial summits whence 

The spiritual inner sense. 

Mounting beyond'the mortal vision-line, 

May soar to the divine ! 

O ye who, valiant-hearted, in the van 

Of human progress march, 

Let not your eyes from off the hills be drawn, 

But watch the aureate splendor of the dawn 

Transfigure all the sky's expanding arch ! 



51 



THE MARCH OF THE IDEAL 

Tis the eternal, slow-unfolding plan 

That the Ideal, like the beaconing light 

Of morning o'er the height, 

Shall guide mankind forever up and on. 

If toward the gleam be turned the lifted face, 

Behold it shall be written of the race, — 

They live and shall live, for those cannot die 

Upon whose altars burn ideals high, 

Who worship nothing base! 



52 



The Stars of Morning 



THE STARS OF MORNING 

ROUSING from slumber at the marge of morn, 
I watched the heavenly pageant. A faint rose 
Flushed, wavering, zenith-ward, and night was shorn 
Of shadow and of silence, for the crows 
Clamored to southward o'er the stubble rows 
Where tossed erewhile the gonfalons of corn. 

Sharply the tracery of barren boughs 
Penciled the sky with many a warped line ; 

There, at the prime of June, were wont to house 
Those winged souls of song that shift and shine 
Amid the leafage,— -motes incarnadine. 

Voicing the most inviolate of vows. 

Above, Orion hung, not yet gone home 
From his long hunting through the midnight hours, 

Ranging the vast expanse of purple dome ; 
And, underneath, shedding its lustrous showers, 
Procyon flashed with undiminished powers, 

As doth a beacon flaming o'er the foam. 



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ODES AND ELEGIES 



And that bright orb the old Egyptians named 
Sothis, that swelled the Nile at its desire, 

Was like the glowing of a wrath untamed, 
A scintillating aura of white fire ; — 
And I recalled 'twas ominous of ire 

When Rome's war-eagles the wide world acclaimed. 

Yet even its proud empery must yield 
To the ascendence of its over-lord ; 

But, ere the sun showed its majestic shield 
O'er the crisped reaches of hiemal sward. 
So, as in thunderous music the last chord 

Mellows to beauty, soft it stood revealed. 

And in that fainter, finer, fairer light 
There flowered within my mind the thought of all 

Who, or with eager or with aching sight. 
Had hung upon the dawning, — the spent thrall 
Of Pleasure, mourning youth fled past recall ; 

The haggard and embittered eremite. 



56 



THE STARS OF MORNING 

The soldier reveling in Glory's dream, 
Unmindful of Defeat's ensanguined hour ; 

The stricken sufferer, yearning toward the gleam ; 
The pallid mourner, with despair for dower ; 
Ambition's bond-slave, lustful after power ; 

The bride, unwearying of one deathless theme ; — 

These and innumerous others flushed and failed 
In the mind's galleries ; then a surge of gold 

Engulfed the rose-light, and clear Sirius paled 
Into a dying point as o'er it rolled 
The effulgent wave triumphant, and behold, 

Day's immaterial splendor unassailed ! 

Stars of the morning (and thou loveliest 
Despite thine ancient augury of ill ! ) 

That watchest man "on his eternal quest,— 
Creature of shifting mood and variant will,— 
Be ye our avatars,— exemplars still,— 

Noble Desire and Faith made manifest. 



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ODES AND ELEGIES 



Ye stand for steadfastness. If driven cloud, 
Or virgin calm, possess the vast of sky, 

Yet are ye there, forevermore endowed 
With patient purpose ; and though days may die 
As doth the fading rose-leaf noiselessly, 

No change ye know, to endless vigil vowed. 

Ye stand for beauty, for perfection's goal, 
Wrought out of chaos by the word divine ! 

Blossoms of the illimitable soul 
That down unfathomable spaces shine, 
Now amethystine and now opaline. 

Unblemished parts of an unblemished whole. 

Ye stand for exaltation, and the scorn ' 

Of all unworth, for the serene delights 

From duty's uttermost fulfillment born ; — 
For aspiration and man's primal rights ; 
Then, lead us, lead us, to thy calm pure heights 

Up paths dream-paven, O ye stars of morn ! 

1904 



58 



The Oriskany 



THE ORISKANY 

THERE is a stream, whose name is like a song, 
Full of enchantment and serene delight. 
That all the varied year, come winter's wrong. 

Or summer's orientry of sound and sight, 

Binds me its lure-slave. From the open height, 
Above the woodland's deep, druidic shade, 

I mark it glinting, glimpsing, glimmering far 
Beyond the valley-gateway^ now arrayed 
In silvern sheen, now flashing like the blade 
That in the press at Roncesvalles played 

Round Roland, the red battle's rallying star. 

I know its placid pools, pellucid, pure, 
Whereo'er the willows lean so lovingly 

From whose enamored boughs an overture, — 
Wren, warbler, vireo, — mellow trinity, — 
Each vernal mofn mounts into ecstasy ; 

1 know its dancing shallows like the skies 
Of virgin April, shadow shot with shine ; 

Ever some darting, dimpling, sweet surprise, — 

The limpid longing in the young deer's eyes, — 

Elusive ambers, subtle with surmise. 
Persuasive purples, mysteries beryline. 



6i 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



Fare with me to its well-head ! You shall find 

A little lake that still to solitude 
Is not an utter stranger, where the wind 

Flutes 'mong the fir trees in a pensive mood ; 

Here, if you will, you may abide and brood 
On sylvan murmurs that around you stray. 

On sibyl secrets that the reeds impart, — 
Draining from out the chalice of the day 
An immaterial nectar,— a rare ray 
Filching, in unguessed sources stored away, 

And gaining new beatitudes of heart. 

Wind with its windings ! Ah, what honeyed dew. 
What ripe, balsamic scents will float and fall 

On your perception 1 — the rapt retinue 
Of nards and attars emblematical 
Of healing will encincture, gird you thrall ; 

Strange traceries of bloom will you behold 
Amid its guardian grasses and the coil 

Of the lithe vines its twilight copses fold, — 

The lady's-slipper's shy, evasive gold, 

The cardinal's ruddy spire, and, white and cold. 
The Indian-pipe against the murky soil. 



62 



THE ORISKANY 



It is the loyal lover of that lore 

Long lapsed, the redman's transitory tale ; 
Oft having heard, in centuries gone before, 

Sachems at council in some daisied swale, 

And caught, adown the starry midnight trail. 
The spectral vision of forms fleeting by 

Intangible as vapors of the morn ; 
Oft having hearkened to the warrior's cry, 
Or the dusk maiden's hesitant reply, 
What time peace ruled the hazed Oneida sky 

Above the wigwams and the clustered corn. 

From Madison's bluff pasture slopes to where 

The quiet Mohawk through lush lowlands glides, 
Beneath an arch of uncontaminate air 

Year-long it sends its swift mellifluous tides ; 

It chimes with cleSr bell-worship ; it derides 
With buoyant laughter the restricting hand 

When lavish spring its forest fountain fills ; 
It bounties all of that benignant land 
That maple-crowned Augusta crests command ; 
And benisons the meadows that expand 

Beneath the grand sweep of the Kirkland hills. 



63 



ODES AND ELEGIES 



O lyric stream, your name to me spells Youth, 

And the bewitching glamour of Romance ; 
In Fable's eyes you set the gleam of Truth, 

And stamp as real the will-o'-the-wisp Perchance ; 

The charm of days evanished you enhance 
Until your bosky banks 1 tread again, 

Boyhood's blithe rover without gyve or bond ; 
You lead into a consecrate domain 
Unhaunted by pale presences of pain. 
Where roseate joy holds sempiternal reign, 

And faces all seem fair and voices fond. 

To Arcady you ope the golden door 

Far more than any legend-lettered page ; 
Upon your marge there lies a richer ore 

Than mage or dreamful prophet may presage 

For the Golcondas of a future age. 
You symbol mirth and music ; you attest, 

In never-ceasing song, the choric plan, 
Ranging the rhythmic gamut of all rest ; — 
Ah, to be borne upon as calm a breast 
When, like a pilgrim on his fmal quest, 

I face the night, and seek the bourn of man 1 

1904 



64 



